Over It: Why I’m Done Trying to Find Love in the Gay Community
Toward the tail end of 2021, I went out on my first date with a man since 2018. We met on a dating app and agreed to link up to “chill”. We ended up going out on a dinner date and all in all the date went well. The conversation flowed, the chemistry was nice. For a while I thought this could be something special. Fast forward to the middle of the date when I invited him back to my apartment for some drinks and conversation. After a few drinks, we kissed and we touched and we held one another. We did not have sex as we both admitted that we did not want to trade souls till we knew we were in this for the long haul. After many pours of cheap alcohol, Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde and I began to see a different side of the man I wanted to cast as my New Years bae. After a couple more refills of the grape, homeboi became verbally abusive and began to make snide comments about my hobbies and my credentials. I did not understand where this was coming from. It seemed I may have triggered a bad memory of his ex as he stated “you’re just like my ex”. Once he said that, I knew it was over. My Nubian dream became a juvenile nightmare. I had to get out of this safely. In an effort to get him out of my apartment without incident, I drove him home. The next day, he apologized profusely and asked if we could start over. I thanked him for taking accountability for his poor behavior however I informed him that I could no longer see him again. I was done. I decided at that moment that I was out the game for good. No more sitting across from strangers retelling the same stories over and over again. No more dropping mass amounts of cash on dinners and drinks, no more trying to find the right words to say to keep them engaged. I was done. I mean how many times can you continue to tell someone your favorite color? It is redundant and quite frankly, I’m over it!
Let’s face it, trying to find love in 2022 is hella expensive! It costs not only your money but also your pride, your faith, your trust and your heart. It just costs too much for what it’s worth and if you’re a gay man, forget it, trying to even find a date is an exercise in futility. Somehow I got fortunate by even making it to dating status. Usually it’s just a “blow and go” situation and that’s all your get. I’m actually used to casual sex as that is all these men can offer. There is still a small part of me that hopes against hope thinking I can beat the odds and find true love but lately the odds have been beating my ass to a bloody pulp and quite frankly, I can’t spare the blood!
When it comes to gay men, I subscribe to the saying “if ain’t one thing it’s another”. In my estimation, gay men are some of the most damaged, broken, wounded individuals I done ever met. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Just go on social media, look at all the status updates and videos posted by gay men. It’s all the same thing. Every gay man is lamenting the fact that they cannot find anyone decent to save their lives. If every gay man feels this way, why aren’t they acting right?
What I have come to realize is that gay men struggle with intense feelings of low self-esteem and low self-worth. Living in an invalidating society that has made it clear that your presence on this earth is neither wanted nor appreciated can contribute to these feelings however at what point do we as gay men say enough is enough? At what point do we begin to allow ourselves the gift of love?
What I have noticed is that most gay men want you to suffer them. They literally want to make you suffer for love. You have to jump through hoops to prove your worthy of their love. It is like they are projecting their feelings of low self-worth by making you do all the work for them that they refuse to do on themselves. They want you to prove to them that you are in it for the long haul by enduring their cheating, their lies, their second and third lives and their unresolved wounds. Many gay men I’ve spoken to struggle with father wounds and often times try to make other men pay for the sins of their fathers. Sadly most gay men who simply want an honest love become the unfortunate recipients of another mans unresolved rage. It’s unfair and it’s leading to a universal circle of mistrust, hurt, pain and relational trauma. Some gay men have sought exodus from the life because unfortunately what once looked like a real life is transforming into a slow death. As we all get older, we want a future. We want to generate a life full of dreams, love and children. Sadly many gay men will not realize this ideal as trying to find someone who shares this vision is like trying to find a needle in a gay stack.
What I have noticed through personal experience is that most gay men struggle with substance abuse issues, arrested development, intimacy issues, issues with fidelity, commitment phobias, unresolved childhood trauma, fear of abandonment as well as the refusal to let go of old flames. Many gay men still burn hot towards their old lovers and harbor secret fantasies of reuniting with their ex’s. This in my opinion is what makes it difficult for them to really commit and invest in their new partners as you cannot make room in your heart for someone new if your heart is already occupied by someone you once knew.
Also I realize that a lot of gay men on social media are boasting about either getting engaged or getting married but a lot of these engagements/marriages are not love-based. They are based on the fear of dying alone, the realization that their union is financially beneficial with one partner “paying for love”, paying for everything just to show the world they are loved, or just for attention and the gaze/praise of “their fans”. It’s all a farce and it is sickening to watch because it makes a mockery out of love. It also makes you wonder if this is all you can hope for, a love based on lies, fears and fabrication.
This is why I’m done. I’m just flat out exhausted! The game has wore me out. Until gay men enter counseling, unpack their childhood wounds and explore how these wounds play out in their relationships with others, they will continue to act out and destroy not only themselves but those who try to love them. I refuse to allow the unaddressed wounds of another to determine my fate in life. I have learned that no matter how much you invest in your own healing journey, you will still encounter men who have not invested in theirs. This will leave you right back at square one over and over again as you throw back the rejects and return to single status. Y’all can have it! I will watch from the sidelines as I work towards building a real life with God and those very few real ones I have in my life.
